Christopher

Thanks Tam, PM sent

Hey Vapor Talkers, 
So as most of you have probably heard by now the FDA has release their deeming regulations for electronic cigarettes. It's extremly broad and a potential devastating blow to the industry. Especially for small to medium sized vape shops that produce their own hardware or e-liquids. I'll leave my own opinion out of the top post and reserve this for the most current information. There seems to be a lack of simplified summaries so I'll do my best, with what we know so far, to explain the situation.
UPDATED 7-1-2016
Hi folks SFATA provided a great breakdown that makes things very easy to understand. You can view that document - HERE
Here is a summary for everyone: 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA” or “the Agency”) issued a prepublication version of its final Deeming Rule on May 5, 2016. This Rule extends FDA’s authority to all tobacco products, products derived from tobacco, and devices used with tobacco products (except accessories). With this action, and as of the Rule’s effective date, the FDA will or could have authority over the following products:

● Liquids containing nicotine (products without nicotine are not under FDA’s authority)
● Batteries
● Tank systems
● Cartomizers
● Atomizers
● Digital Displays
● Device Software

The Rule was published in the May 10, 2016 edition of the Federal Register. The Rule’s effective date is 90 days from publication in the Federal Register ( i.e. , August 8, 2016). Once the Rule is published in the Federal Register, it starts the clock ticking on a number of dates. The Deeming Rule also creates a distinction among businesses in the industry: retailers and manufacturers. 
Retailers: Means any person who sells tobacco products to individuals for personal consumption, or who operates a facility where vending machines or selfservice displays are permitted.

Manufacturers: Means any person, including any repacker and/or relabeler, who manufactures, fabricates, assembles, processes, or labels a finished tobacco product. As explained below, if an establishment mixes or prepares eliquids, or creates or modifies aerosolizing apparatuses for direct sale to consumers, such a firm would be a tobacco product manufacturer. A manufacturer could also be any business that rebuilds coils or devices beyond simple repairs. 
Depending on number of employees and annual revenues, it is possible that a manufacturer could qualify as a “small scale tobacco product manufacturer.” Qualifying for this designation will not reduce the compliance requirements, but will afford such firms with additional time to comply with certain requirements under the Rule. Under the Rule, a “smallscale tobacco product manufacturer” is a manufacturer of any regulated tobacco product that employs 150 or fewer fulltime equivalent
(“FTE”)employees and has annual total revenues of $5,000,000 or less. FDA considers a manufacturer to include each entity that it controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with such manufacturer. In other words, if a firm employs 150 or less FTE employees and has $5,000,000 or less in annual total revenues, but is controlled by, controls, or under common control with another manufacturer that puts them over the 150 FTE/$5,000,000 revenue thresholds, they would no longer be
considered a smallscale tobacco product manufacturer.

IMPORTANT DATES:
May 10, 2016 - The Deeming Rule is officially published and will be effective 90 days thereafter. August 8, 2016 - The Deeming Rule is effective, as it is 90 days after the Rule is published in the Federal Register. This starts the clock on the various premarket pathway options and it also implements some key changes in the near term. December 31, 2016 - As a result of The Deeming Rule manufacturers will now need to submit a list of all products twice a year December and June of each year. Because the Rule will go into effect August 8 th December of this year will be the first time that vapor product manufacturers have to submit this information. February, 2017 - Manufacturers will need to submit an ingredient list of all products that are manufactured in February of 2017. It is not clear at this time what items the FDA will be expecting although we do expect that the level of detail required will be significant. As we know more, we will provide updates. August 8, 2018 - Premarket tobacco product application (“PMTAs”) are due. August 8, 2019  -Three years after the Rule’s effective date. By this time, all products on the market must have been grandfathered or the subject of an FDA marketing authorization order. How Suppliers must obtain FDA authorization 
Manufacturers of newlydeemed products that are "new tobacco products” will be required to obtain premarket authorization of their products through one of three pathways:

(1) substantial equivalence (SE): This will require a manufacturer to show that a new product is substantially equivalent to a product on the market as of February 15, 2007. As I'm sure most of you know, It is unlikely that many products will be able to demonstrate SE given both the lack of comparable products on the market in February 2007 and the differences between products then and now. These submissions are due 18 months after the effective date (Anyone remember the old pen style 801's? Yikes...) 

(2) exemption from SE; This pathway is intended primarily for cigars and is unlikely to be an avenue for vapor products. These applications are due 12 months after the effective date.

(3) premarket tobacco product application (PMTAs): This will be the path that almost all vapor products will need to follow. Manufacturers for both eliquids
and devices will have 24 months to submit a PMTA application. After an application has been submitted, manufacturers will have an additional 12 months to market products.

At the close of these compliance periods, products will be subject to FDA enforcement unless they are grandfathered or are the subject of a marketing authorization order. It should be noted that the administrative costs of compiling a PMTA will cost at least a few hundred thousand dollars PER product. This conservative estimate does not account for the testing that will be required to generate data sufficient to inform a PMTA submission. Such testing could cost at least $1 million per product.
Short Term:
Nothing will significantly change the way you operate your business until August 8 th . Beginning on August 8 th , the FDA can and likely will, to some degree, begin to enforce the following requirements:

∙ Products may not be sold to persons under the age of 18 (both in person and online);
∙ Age verification required by photo ID;
You've no doubt run across a few suppliers already requests age verification documents. These are suppliers getting ahead of the curve, expect this to become more normal. 
Vapor Talk
Quite a few members have PM'd me asking how this will affect Vapor Talk and what our stance is. (.... the PR firm kindly requested I refrain from using the exact words I'd like to express. But I'm sure you can take an educated guess if you know my history here!) First, the forum will always remain! No doubt forums are a gateway to the most current information. Secondly, I've taken back a large controlling share of Vapor Talk. We've just closed a joint, multi-million dollar venture and I can assure you, we're in this for the long haul (PR Release will be available at the end of the month). Vapor Talk started in 2008 and since then we've gone through early year bans, border seizures, California state ban (then reversed by good ol' Arnold) and much more. We've been doing this well before many of the new vapers arrived. 
I'll be working to expand the Vapor Talk online store, get the forum backup to spec (Many updates and bug fixed have been applied to the forum today.) as well as open new locations. VT is currently managed by the Whitney Group out of New Jersey but we'll be reopening offices in Los Angeles, a new office in Beijing (I'm flying out in two weeks so be sure to check the VT blog!) and finally England (Location TBA). Many of you have supported not just me personally but Vapor Talk as a company and community for a long time. As such we plan to stay for many, many years to come. 
 

Much like smoking cigarettes when they first came out, there isn't any long term studies on the effects of vaping so we won't know if there will be any adverse consequences down the road.
If you're not a smoker trying to quit smoking cigarettes, and you're only wanting to start vaping to fit in with your co-workers or because it looks "cool." I would strongly recommend you find a different hobby, other co-workers who might have similar interests as you, and stay away from something that, although we believe it's safer than smoking, we still don't know the full effects it could have in the future.
That's my two cents.  :)  

It's also unusual that a new forum member names himself/herself with the name of the eliquid vendor and posts the link to their site and then complains about their service. Please do not spam the forum with spammy links or you'll find your account banned. If you have a legitimate post, you're more than welcome on the forum. Thank you for your cooperation. 

If I had a dollar... 

Got one coming to you, the kit has 4 pods inside. Enjoy!

Your the best

As Mark mentioned you are a vendor. Please take a moment to read the forums welcome and announcement area. 

Actually their internet, especially the mobile internet is amazing. It's ridiculously fast. However, the government uses what's called the "Great Firewall of China." It's against the law to access many western based websites. Though they usually won't go after foreigners, things like Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Skype, Maps you name it is all blocked. Many Chinese aren't even aware of what Youtube is. You have to use a VPN to route out of the country and that's the "flakey" part. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). When I want to upload to Instagram or FB for example, I have to encrypt my connection and upload at certain times of the day. Pretty ridiculous. 
If you are using Chinese based services however, they are far ahead of us in terms of mobile technology (I don't even use cash there, just my phone. Even in the boondocks when dealing with rural farmers. It's funny to see some old guy on the street, in the middle of nowhere, selling fruit and paying for it using China's mobile pay/WeChat) 

Actually their internet, especially the mobile internet is amazing. It's ridiculously fast. However, the government uses what's called the "Great Firewall of China." It's against the law to access many western based websites. Though they usually won't go after foreigners, things like Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Skype, Maps you name it is all blocked. Many Chinese aren't even aware of what Youtube is. You have to use a VPN to route out of the country and that's the "flakey" part. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). When I want to upload to Instagram or FB for example, I have to encrypt my connection and upload at certain times of the day. Pretty ridiculous. 
If you are using Chinese based services however, they are far ahead of us in terms of mobile technology (I don't even use cash there, just my phone. Even in the boondocks when dealing with rural farmers. It's funny to see some old guy on the street, in the middle of nowhere, selling fruit and paying for it using China's mobile pay/WeChat) 

510 connectors on tanks can vary in length,  if it is too long it can cause a short, too short and it may just barely touch the center pin, and cause a high ohm reading. I have no experience with Smok tanks, maybe someone that has one can let us know about the 510 length.

Here is a sample of her work.  Not that I'm a proud dad or anything.....
https://past2presentresearch.wordpress.com/tag/audrey-elder/

Great! Vaping wouldn't really be required. We're not looking for reviews and things of that nature, more general industry news, regulation, laws and things of that nature. Easily found online but naturally would have to be re-written/researched. It's pay per article so please reach out to her if you think she'd be interested

...Back in my day, mechanical mods are all we had. And we had to vape them uphill, both ways. 

OMG!  That is truly hilarious.  Bravo!  Seriously, I laughed out loud.  My cat thinks I've flipped.  I'm diggin this thing.  I put a little Serpent Mini with a .33Ω build on it tonight and I am getting a really sweet vape off of it.  It's almost like temp control.  Ramps up pretty quickly and then just kinda maintains a mildly warm vape.  Nice long inhale and just enough power to the coil to make the flavor shine.  I'm having all together too much fun with this vaping thing.  One of my first mods was an Eleaf something or other that was a rather fat tube style mod with a 22mm mello atty.  The battery didn't last long and I've always wanted one that would take an 18650.  Well,  this mech fits the bill.  Funny, @Tam mentioned that you had some tube mechs on sale and after thinking back for a bit I realized I was eyeing the things but didn't know what they were.  I thought they were some kind of weird clear-o-mizer.  Now I get it.  They were telescoping mechs.  Daaaaaa.  Oh well, I'm sure they got a good home, lol. 

Friday, if all goes as planned I will have a mechanical mod.  Yes, a.k.a. pipe bomb.  Dental reconstruction device.  Chemically induced flame thrower.  You can call me Grog.  I'm  planning initial launch this Saturday.  Luke, join the dark side. 

It’s happened to all of us at some point. You pull the dead battery out of your favorite mod, you place it into your charger and the light turns green. Wait, green light? WTH it’s dead! Why is the green light on? Stupid Chinese crap charger, right? No, it’s probably not the charger. It’s the protection circuit in the battery. Some of these batteries are pricey and replacing them can take a toll on your wallet.
Here’s what probably happened…
Most good batteries come with built in protection. When the battery is drained too low the safety circuit kicks in to protect the battery and more so you, from any damage. Is there a way to fix the battery? Yes, sometimes. The the following trick doesn’t always work but has saved me countless headaches.
1. Grab another battery of equal size and voltage (if you don’t have another, grab a 9 volt battery)
2. Connect the positive and negative ends of both batteries (The second battery must be fully charged in order to repair the defective battery)
3. Hold for about 3-4 seconds.
NOTE: Positive to Positive, Negative to Negative!

Essentially you’re “jumping” the battery. It should cause the protection circuit to “reset”. Place your defective battery back on the charger and wallah, red light
I hope this helps some of you save a couple bucks and drive a little extra life out of those mod batteries.
-Chris

When I first started vaping I used to vape 24mg. (This was before PV's became more efficient). Today the wifey mixed me up some 1.5mg and the next step will be 0mg. Figured I'd pat myself on the back. I mean it's been 8 years but better late than never right?

Looking forward too the new hardware VT has coming out. More than happy with the ones out now

Hey Folks, 
We've had a ton of questions about our Firesale, why we're doing it and what's going on Reset assured, we're not going anywhere. I wrote a blog post better explaining what's going on behind the scenes. You can read it here.

Hey Folks, 
We've had a ton of questions about our Firesale, why we're doing it and what's going on Reset assured, we're not going anywhere. I wrote a blog post better explaining what's going on behind the scenes. You can read it here.

Most of my coils pop or crackle to be honest, it's not that unusual. If it gurgles, generally the tank is flooded, if it goes quiet it may not have enough (or too much), usually a gentle crackle, is pretty typical IMO. 

Our house 

As someone mentioned on Twitter, good thing she didn't have a Galaxy Note 7 in there as well... 

This is eventually why suppliers will start moving towards built in battery units. It's just not worth the risk when users can't follow simple protocol (a good number of batteries ship with warning information that almost nobody reads)